“’Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness, and streams in the wasteland.’” Is. 43:18-19

The past is neither our design nor our destiny; it’s just the direction we’ve been going in until now.

If we’ve been alive for any length of time, we’ve been hurt. That hurt is real and doesn’t feel good. So why would we want to keep hanging on to it? If someone handed us a huge bag of garbage, would we keep it in the center of our living room in full view, as air-unfreshener? The better choice would be to find and identify all the hurt-garbage, remove it, and take it to the dump.

Have any of us ever failed in the past? If you don’t think so, you’re “failing” to be honest with yourself(!). It’s better to admit when we’ve failed and learn from it to improve our character, knowledge, and skills. Henry Ford wouldn’t hire a person who had never failed (or likely wasn’t admitting it). He preferred those who would be humble, teachable, and already taught by their failures. As one of my Leadership professors put it, “Failure is an event, not a condition.” We put our failure behind us by letting that experience develop us in positive ways.

How about disappointment? We live in a fallen world. People and circumstances let us down. Remember the time when…? I’m sure we do. It’s the person or thing that eroded our trust, diminished our hope, and made us give up on the person or trying again. Not a life-giving place to be stuck in. But which is better—to give up trying and give up on relationships, or to say, “that was then, but I’m going to give it/them another chance”? At least with the latter, there’s a chance of things going better. Otherwise, we have no chance at all.

What do all these scenarios have in common? They caused our lives to go in a direction we wish they hadn’t. Does that mean we need to continue in the wrong direction? Only if we’re too proud to change directions or don’t know we have a choice.

We have a choice. Face the future in a new way and it will go in a better direction. We’re neither designed nor destined for misery or destruction.

This reminds me of when three of us were driving to a ladies’ conference—chatting happily, until suddenly the driver cried out, “Georgia?!” Apparently, she had taken a wrong turn, because we were supposed to be heading in the opposite direction. At that point we had three choices: Sit there and lament our past direction that had taken us so far out of the way; Continue going the wrong way, because, after all, we’d already come so far in that direction and it would be “wasteful” or “impossible” to turn around, let alone make up for lost time; or—stop, turn around immediately, head in the right direction, and arrive at our (and the Lord’s) intended destination, later than we would have liked, but trusting He’d work that out. Since the first two choices made no sense, we chose the third.

Life gives us those three choices. Let’s choose the third.

Last year has passed and the new one has just begun. Go and be all the positive things we’re meant to be and do, and live into the best destiny we’re called to, starting today!

 ^“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer. 29:11